Galway’s young guns put awful Dubs to the sword

Inside Track with John McIntyre

It was virtually impossible to visualise what transpired at Pearse Stadium last Sunday. Galway hurlers were as good as Dublin were bad, making for a shockingly one-sided opening round National League encounter as the youthful home team made light of heavy underfoot conditions in thrashing the Leinster champions.

Galway can be hard to read at the best of times and though they would have drawn some encouragement from overcoming Munster in Ballinasloe the previous weekend, general expectations were that there wouldn’t be much in it in this repeat of last year’s provincial final. The Tribesmen were marginal favourites to carry the day, but instead the encounter turned into a rout.

The temptation is to pick holes in the result and urge caution into getting too carried away by an admittedly vibrant Galway performance, but it still has to be acknowledged that over the team’s entire league and championship campaigns in 2013, they didn’t produce a single display comparable to this dynamic effort against the Dubs. That alone is something to build on even if the amount of time and space afforded the Galway players bordered on the ridiculous at times.

The hands of Anthony Cunningham, Eugene Cloonan and Damien Curley may have been forced somewhat by the absence of the Portumna contingent and injuries to the likes of Cyril Donnellan and Niall Burke, but they deserve credit for investing heavily in a youth policy for Sunday’s Division One opener. By the end of the match, six newcomers had been bloodied as the management opted not to play safe.

There had been a lot of gloom around in the wake of Galway’s heavy Walsh Cup defeat to Kilkenny, but they were unrecognisable last Sunday compared to the outfit which limped out of Freshford. There was real bite and energy to their performance with newcomers, Cathal Mannion and Jason Flynn, enjoying dream league debuts with each player landing four points from play.   

Padraig Brehony may be a little more experienced, but the former star minor had his best outing at this level with a high-energy midfield showing which the Tynagh man capped off with two excellent points. New full back Ronan Burke proved his worth too even if not coming under the expected kind of pressure as Dublin proved a major disappointment in fumbling their way to an alarming 13-point defeat.

All over the field, Galway were simply too smart, too skilful and too driven for their opponents who went 21 minutes without a score in the opening half and, overall, were a throwback to the bad old days of Dublin teams lacking in finesse, method and craft. Manager Anthony Daly cut a dejected figure on the sideline and privately he must have been stunned that his team which contained so many frontline performers were so off the pace.

In contrast, this was something of a restorative day for Galway hurling and though, naturally, the pressure will be on them to back up this encouraging display in the weeks ahead, at least Cunningham and his mentors have suddenly a solid platform to build on. We will know more after this Sunday’s away test against Waterford, but the Tribesmen should be making the journey to Walsh Park with a real spring in their step.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.